$10 spent carefully in a dollar store will buy enough calories to keep you alive for a couple of weeks.

It won't be phat city, the selection will be limited and boring, BUT you won't be looking like an auschwitz victim at the end of those couple of weeks either.

Thirty?

You can eat for several days on ten bucks. if you're honestly hungry.

Hell, Michael Moore is paying thousands of dollars a week to not eat...

Hell, I'd break his jaw for free.

dbs

RACIST!!!!!

The most important thing is water. Everybody should have a few gallons of water. (For example, take empty 2-liter soda bottles, fill them with tap water, and put them beneath the sink.)

I saw part of a PBS special on 'hunger' in America.

They showcased a family eating their last bit of food until they got more foodstamps.

It was a hunk of Canadian bacon.
I would add that this was in summertime, and they had a patch of land.

So: No garden.
And: They're eating expensive goddamn food.

The problem with the US is, we are so rich that the poor don't even know how to live cheaply anymore.

You know how many pounds of rice and beans you can buy for the price of one hunk of Canadian bacon??

During the Great Depression, the people who went hungry were the middle class, not the poor. The poor back then had the knowledge. Not anymore.

Beans 'n rice with hot sauce and a little porkfat is damn good eatin'.

An anecdote for the road about city-dwellers:

When I lived in Hartford, CT, I had a couple of little gardens that I raised fresh vegetables for the table in.

I had a 1/2 barrel that I had planted with onions. One of my renters asked me where the onions were, and I pointed to the planter with the green shoots coming up out of the soil.
I had to explain to her that the onions were underground. She thought that the onions would grow like fruit on top of the shoots.

The little kids in the neighborhood wouldn't take any of the sweet cherry tomatoes from my vines because they were 'wild,' not from the grocery store.

"Hell, it beats cannibalism."

Don't knock it 'til you've tried it, bub.

You've got to stockpile some baby food if you have a baby. For adults, I doubt it matters all that much what food you store, as long as it has some calories so you can function for a few days. And water.

Anyone care to guess the percentage of "the poor" that "couldn't" get out also were the proud owners of six channel home theaters, DVD's, and more Snoop Dogg cd's then bottles of water?

bitterman:

Had that for dinner Sunday.

With corn bread.

The only problem I have is that I keep making way too much beans and rice when I cook it up.

"Don't knock it 'til you've tried it, bub."

Mmmmm, long pig, mmmmmmm.

Barbeque sauce comes in quite handy sometimes.

Corn bread.

There's another thing that's cheap to make a lot of.
Ziploc bags. You're all set.

I haven't brought it up in debates in comment threads because I haven't felt like countering the "you don't know what it's like to be poor!" idiocy, but when I stock up pre-hurricane here in South Florida the food/water costs about twenty bucks (and I buy too much stuff). Non-perishables are generally cheap shit by default.

O/T, but This site is kind of cool.

Mostly because I hate voicemail menus.

During the Great Depression, the people who went hungry were the middle class, not the poor. The poor back then had the knowledge. Not anymore.

I can't agree with a generalization that broad, but with respect to the positive part of it regarding folks during the Depression: Have you ever read Ava's Man by Rick Bragg? It's a great book, I think you'd like it.

Buying some basic camping equipment can't hurt, either. Things like small propane tanks, a mini-propane stove that fits on a small tank, a water purifier, etc.

Here in Maine, some communities lost power for weeks during the ice storm in 1997-98. Basic camping crap enabled a lot of people to eat hot meals.

They can have it both ways. One is about personal responsibility (none) and one is about Uncle Sugar (everything else). See how that works?

A case of Wolf Brand Chili costs $8 at Sam's. If you don't like chili, go for Dinty Moore. In metal cans that will survive anything, short of a nuclear blast. Stick it in the closet, with a $1 can opener and a plastic spoon swiped from your favorite buffet. If you can't live off that for a week, well, I can't help you.

If people don't want to purchase bottled water, there's always this:

Water purification: $10.99 at Campmor. Treats up to 30 gallons of water.

Okay, so it's late and my HTML skills are lacking at this hour.

Try this instead.

Tuna.

I keep about 20 cans collecting dust... protein city and it's always on sale somewhere. A little dash 'O soy sauce (gatta get yer salt) and you're good to go.

Or just eat the annoying neighbors, whatever works best for you.

...and from looking at the videos, a lot of those folks hadn't missed a lot of meals in recent years, anyway. Stock the shelters, and if someone's bigger around than they are tall, they go to the back of the line for snacks.

Give 'em some rice cakes or something.

And for a very cheap meal, you just can't beat spam....
SPAM, SPAM, SPAM, LOVELY SPAM! WONDERFUL SPAM!

Spam?

Sure, if you've got plenty of water to quench the inevitable Spam-induced thirst.

On second thought, cannibalism.

Well, we've got spam, spam, spam, baked beans and spam. That's not got so much spam in it.

I could send my cook up there and she could teach them how to feed a family of 4 for $20 a week and feed them well. We feed the cook, groundskeeper, maid, me and bullwinklette and usually 2 or 3 others for about $60 a week. And it's not like groceries are any cheaper in Mexico than they are in the states, the only thing cheap down here is labor.

BTW, I grow weary of hearing about how the "poor can't afford to stockpile food."

Wow, you must really hate the poor. I bet you're homophobic, too.

p.s. And the jooooooossssss.

If people don't want to purchase bottled water, there's always this

A couple of dollars worth of Clorox is enough to make a swimming pool full of puddle water drinkable. Filter the result through a folded up sheet to remove the bigger chunks, insects, misquito larva, misc bits of rotted corpse flesh etc.

Not quite Evian, but the Clorox kills most of the nasty bugs.

It is fairly pathetic to see liberals and some clueless conservatives saying looting is OK as soon as the hurricane winds died down enough for looters to be able to stand on their way to the Winn Dixie and TV Land Stores.

Hours after the hurricane, it is supposed to have been a matter of survival for thirsty, dying of hunger in their XXXL stretch-pants citizens to get "necessities" - braving broken plate glass windows and all.

Same people too lazy to fill bottles and tubs up with water found the energy to walk 1/4 mile to the supermarket and fill a shopping cart up with beer. Many of course hit TV Land - but only so the two flat screens joining the 4 already appropriated for survival on 2 previous trips could be traded for ribeyes and some other nice stuff to keep the 8 kids fed up.

Buy 10 dollars worth of rice and beans? Enough for 8-12 days?

Asking someone who has suffered and been victimized more than any have in America's history to eat just rice and beans rather than get free gold chains for barter for better than that is ....insulting and...and...ah, racist....racist as hell!!

rather than get free gold chains for barter for better than that is ....insulting and...and...ah, racist....racist as hell!!

That moronic twit Celine Dion apparently thinks so. Got all teary eyed over it too.

Course I doubt she holds too many open houses to allow the po-folks to come in and "sample" all the nifty stuff she has. I suspect she'd call the cops or blow'em away if they even got near the front door.

A can of Hormel chilli costs US$ 3 in Taiwan. I'd love to go load up a case of Chilli for US$ 8. Mmmmm.

Human beings can go 3 days without water and 3 WEEKS without food.

Did any of the local New Orleans papers, including the community 'free' ones, print

"Well, If You're Reading this in New Orleans'
- You're Screwed. " checklists?

Did the local media do anything to educate its readership about preparations forsurvivng a hurricane

New Orleanians (which I am a native son) are very good at eating on the cheap. We know what places are "tourist" prices and which aren't. We know how to cook cheap, and make it taste real good, too. Red beans & rice are a weekly feast, even in good times. And white beans & rice, spaghetti, greens, hot dogs and corn bread casserole, canned corned beef hash fried with egg (or without egg) -- there's so much in cans. The liberal guilt being gushed out that the looters were just trying to survive denies the reality that the looters were: 1) not starving, and 2) were thieving criminals, not justified, sainted poor.

Emergency bottled water? Why?
Practically every house in America has a 40 gallon tank of water in it. It's called the "hot water heater."

There are some truly with not a cent to their name, but most poor can buy, for example, rice, beans, tuna, and bottled water.

Funny how "the poor" never seem to lack for cigarettes and alcohol. I'm guessing you could feed a family for a month on what the average "poor" person spends on those items alone. And that's before we talk about fancy tennis shoes, cd's, dvd's, shiney wheels and loud stereos for their cars.

As a former starving college student I can guarantee you that one can gain weight very easily very cheaply in this country.

And it is all Bush's fault! He causes obesity! The DNC said so!

I live in Tampa, Fl. so I've had my share of hurricanes. But we never prep at all. Why? Because we buy bottled water anyway (always have about 15 gallons on hand) and we keep our pantry stocked with canned goods anyway.

Plus, we live inland, and have 4x4's that can pretty much swim if it comes down to it and can drive to other family's houses that are even further inland.

Plus I own guns and could shoot squirrels for food. And when I got tired of squirrels, I could shoot the peacocks that roam our neighborhood. 'Cuz thems good eatin'.

"I could shoot the peacocks that roam our neighborhood. 'Cuz thems good eatin'."

Yeah. They taste just like Spotted Owl!

Well, I don't think Ace was talking about the looters. I think he was talking about the people who were actually trapped in their homes.

I've often thought we should just eliminate food stamps entirely. To replace them, we'd have "assistance IDs" and for folks that truly need help, and at the front of every grovery store we could just have huge bins with dried rice, dried beans, lentils, etc., along with a couple cases of baby formula. Show your ID, take it as you need it.

It would provide adequate nutrition, and can you imagine the reduction in fed expenditures? I'm also betting that such a bland diet, while plenty nutritious, might be an incentive to improve one's own lot in life.

Coupons used during double and triple coupon weekends really help.

We've stockpiled food for months during these sales while only spending about $150.

They're not trying to have it both ways. Both reactions are a necessary outcome of their belief in the role of government: It is the job of the government to take care of you, the bigger the government the more it should care for you. That's why there was such a hostile reaction from Sec. Ridge's guidelines for survival kits. In their minds Ridge was abdicating his responsibilities by telling people to fend for themselves.

This is really a variation of the old chicken or egg debate. The reason these people do not prepare is not because they are unable to because they are poor but they are poor because they are unable to understand how to prepare.

Here's a swell idea- when they rebuild NO, the federal government should ORDER, as a condition of receiving federal rebuilding funds, the following existing organizations must be relocated permanently, to within a few blocks of the Superdome and Convention Center:

(a) an oversized National Guard training area, with vehicle depot. It will contain large diesel storage tanks, emergency generators, a small water purification plant w/storage tanks, a clinic, a gymnasium, stockpiles of cots, blankets, MREs, portable latrines, medical supplies, mosquito netting, large tents, a helicopter pad and lots of transport vehicles;

(b) several existing local food banks and charity food storehouses;

(c) many existing Goodwill/Salvation Army-type workhouses/storage locations/operations centers, containing large amounts of donated clothes, canned goods, kitchens, dining rooms, etc;

(d) the Metro Bus storage and maintenance facility, routinely storing hundreds of buses; and

(e) ditto for the school district buses.

Hopefully, not even a bonehead like Nagen could screw up a setup like that.

"Human beings can go 3 days without water and 3 WEEKS without food."

Young, healthy, but slightly overweight ones can. Babies, the elderly, etc., probably can - sometimes. Not often.

Hopefully, not even a bonehead like Nagen could screw up a setup like that.

If we did all of that, when the day came we'd find out that all the batteries had been stolen, and all the other relief supplies pre-looted years prior by corrupt city officials running their own scams on the side. There would be boxes there, but they'd be empty or full of bricks.

Prepositioned supplies in urban areas will be subject to severe "shrinkage".

While we're on the topic:

1- ExSoviet Bloc or Chinese SKS rifle: $150-200 or so at your nearest gun show. Guaranteed to survive the worst handling, maintainence, (lack of) care and upkeep that an illiterate Ukranian peasant can throw at it... so it SHOULD be able to survive sitting in your closet until you need it.
Local Democrats have banned the SKS or you're on a budget? Get a surplus Hungarian Mauser or Mosin-Nagant for about $120 max.

2- About fifty rounds of ammo: $20 or so, Soviet surplus. It'll be enough: you're discouraging looters here, not reenacting Red Dawn. Any more and you wouldn't be able to carry it anyway.

3- any one of a hundred books, pamphlets, manuals, et cetera on how to aim/fire/clean a rifle: about twenty bucks max at that gun show, assuming you're not bright enough to visit your local library or do an hour or so of Internet search.

In other words, for just over the cost of two pair of Nike Mug-Me Shoes or half the cost of a new boom-box you've got cheap looter insurance- IF you 've got the will to use it.

The Second Amendment: It's there for a reason, folks.

They really should teach survival lessons in school. Kids need to know that in cases of emergency, they should have the necessary supplies in order to survive. At least they can tell their clueless parents what needs to be done or bought from the store.